


Ockham’s Razor

by glasgow_blue



Category: The Lord of the Rings RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-07-02
Updated: 2004-07-02
Packaged: 2018-09-15 07:35:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9225122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glasgow_blue/pseuds/glasgow_blue





	

Blue Plate Special for [](http://southpaw526.livejournal.com/profile)[**southpaw526**](http://southpaw526.livejournal.com/) : _billy and dom in a pub, somewhere_

Title: Ockham’s Razor  
Pairing: Billy/Dom (sorta)  
Word Count: 625  
Disclaimer: I. Am. Making. This. Shit. Up.  
Feedback: Is welcome.  
Cross-posted to: [](http://fellow-shippers.livejournal.com/profile)[**fellow_shippers**](http://fellow-shippers.livejournal.com/) , [](http://monaboyd.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://monaboyd.livejournal.com/)**monaboyd**  


At first, Billy thought that time just worked differently in the southern hemisphere--like the way the seasons are backwards or how water supposedly runs down the drain in the wrong direction. What else could it be, really? What else could make days grow elliptical? What else could explain why it was that Monday went skipping into Thursday, but Friday afternoon often stretched all the way into September?

Then, he decided that it must be a product of making movies the way they did--shooting at all hours of the day and night, repeating lines and scenes until he'd lost count of the number of takes and Pippin was talking about breakfast at dusk. He figured that maybe they had worked enough magic to create an actual bubble; a blip in reality where Middle Earth became real Earth and _of course_ there was a time difference. Like England and New Mexico, only these two were touching.

Now, he knows that it's Dom.

Dom is a Time Lord, able to bend and flex the very fabric of reality. Able to make a day last forever and end entirely too quickly, all at once. And, near as Billy can tell, he's completely unaware of this talent. He goes about the business of living--of being Dom--twisting clocks, stopping watches, slowing the sun's march across the sky and then sending it forward again at double-time and never realizes his effect on those around him.

Billy thinks about stop-motion photography. About the camera techniques that made _The Matrix_ so cool. About those commercials where everything freezes and rotates suddenly, returning the viewer to the same instant from a different perspective. And he thinks that maybe this is what it's like to be Dom. Everything moves and Dom moves through everything and nothing is the same even half a step later. The laws of physics need not apply. E equals DM squared.

Take now, for example. They've been in this pub since eight p.m. BST (Boyd Standard Time, which is Greenwich Mean plus nine minutes, give or take), but it's been at least three days judging by the empty glasses, the decimated plate of chips, and the pile of cigarette butts in his salad bowl.

Somewhere back about noon on the day they sat down, Dom held up his left hand, turning backward on himself in mid-sentence to explain that Patty Boyd was technically still married to George Harrison when Clapton wrote "Layla" for her and that, Bills, is why it's such a fucking tragedy to remake it as acoustic. The song's about passion--about loving someone else's wife for fuck's sake, not about...not about...

And that's where it happened. That's where Dominic Monaghan stopped time, rewound it, and set it forward again at a pace of his own.

He's finally managed to pin one of these moments of cascade down and Billy is just enough of a geek to wonder if alternate realities spin off when Dom does this. Other Billys and other Doms, sitting in other pubs, walking down other streets in other clothes not knowing that they're mirror images. Not caring, maybe.

It's a power he envies, this ability to bend time at will. Billy's own powers are far more mundane. He can carry a tune. He can make things with his hands. He has good balance. He has good luck.

"Think of what you could do with it," he says, not realizing he's spoken aloud until Dom nods solemnly and responds.

"Yeah, but I think it's better left to the Harp Seals, don't you?"

Billy blinks. Another day has passed while he was lost in thought. He looks at his glass, now strangely drained, and throws back the last swallow.

"Aye, to the seals, Dom."


End file.
